Yesterday, I was going through my neglected book collection under our TV console. I was looking through some old books I’ve either not revisited in too long or haven’t visited at all yet and was trying not to look them directly in the eyes.
My books have been tucked away since we moved to Tennessee almost two years ago. As an English grad (which amounts to almost less than what it sounds like), it’s borderline shameful that I haven’t gotten a bookshelf since moving here.
It felt as though they were giving me a look like a dog does when you’ve cooked a delicious steak and haven’t considered giving it a bite yet… I was thumbing through an old copy of Out of the Silent Planet and found something I really liked (of course, it’s Lewis)... This copy is filled with a scrawl of pencil scribblings and yellow highlighter marks from my Dad who must have been using it for a Lewis or composition course he taught in University back in 2006.
And I noticed this passage highlighted in chapter 9:
“He gazed about him, and the very intensity of his desire to take in the new world at a glance defeated itself. He saw nothing but colours—colours that refused to form themselves into things. Moreover, he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.”
Obviously, Lewis is making a point here…
We could take that point and stretch it to a significant amount of examples and metaphors, but for me, it helped articulate something I’m slowly working toward in this writing I’m doing on Scripture’s authority.
For many, Christianity and the things Christians believe remain this formless world of colors that all bleed together and refuse to take shape. It’s just like Ransom staring into the new world of Malacandra. When something is truly different, you have no way of articulating what it is your eyes are taking in.
Your eyes, they may see something, but they lack the context required to make any judgment or rational thought about it.
1 Corinthians 1:18 (NIV) says it like this: For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
But it’s not just the message of the cross… for the world, the whole picture is jumbled and running together… The Christian worldview of creation, or the fall, redemption, and the world to come, all blur into an abstract that probably even appears hideous to those who do not share the worldview or belief.
Now, God has no problem getting past this hurdle. He opens our eyes to the truth of the Gospel and Jesus comes into view, but unfortunately very many people stop looking here.
So the world’s definition of countless things still fills their minds. It still defines the world they are seeing. Whether it be marriage or sexuality, purpose or what constitutes as “sin”, the picture remains a formless watercolor, and they think, like any student of art thinks, the message is completely up for grabs.
You can trace a singular thread back to the Enlightenment here on subjectivity, but the whole idea is that meaning doesn’t rely on the author’s original intent, but on the interpreter’s ability to perceive or conjure it.
This is precisely why the Bible is a hill worthy of dying on.
It makes the formless world we’re unable to perceive, perceptible. It gives frame and definition to the “painting” of life, existence, and God himself.
But as long as Scripture is either rejected as the lens in which we come to terms with reality or as long as it’s neglected like the books under my TV stand, we not only refuse to make sense of the world (life) around us, but we are completely unable to.
We simply do not have the context to understand what we are seeing.
In fact, some suppose it’s arrogant to even try.
So when Covid happened, a guy like N.T. Wright was given the opportunity to speak on behalf of Christianity for Time Magazine, and it’s why he conceded that our faith has no answers for the “why” this was happening.
Any explanation would be deemed proud and cancerous to “real” Christianity. But this idea falls so far short of the truth.
“…you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.”
Wright’s worldview (which ironically affirms the authority of Scripture), wasn’t big enough to say that the world is broken and why it is broken. It’s probably why in the last few months he’s opted for “nuance” in things like the sanctity of life in the womb and the bodily resurrection of Christ as a necessary doctrine of belief for Christians.
[Even more ironic since he has written one of the great books on the historical case for the resurrection of Christ…]
Wright’s empathy for others has driven him to interpret the painting in colors that the Author isn’t using... He’s never seen the greens and blues of Truth like God has used, so he can only refer to what he already knows and make a guess.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. God hasn’t opted to leave us in the dark. He’s not asking us to take blind steps of faith. He doesn’t make his purposes completely unknowable to us, they’re just impossible to trust without faith that comes from God.
J.C. Ryle once said, “Give me a candle and a Bible and shut me up in a dark dungeon, and I will tell you everything that the whole world is doing.”
Scripture will tell us what we’re seeing if we allow it to.
This was 🔥🔥🔥
🫰🏻🫰🏻 so good